You can (not) save his life
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: If you can save someone's life, even at the cost of your own, would you do it? Shinji will be faced with that choice, and will have to decide of whether he'll live or embrace the end of his existence. Manga-based, Unit-03/Bardiel incident. Read it!


Creation began on 06-15-13

Creation ended on 06-20-13

Neon Genesis Evangelion

You can (not) save his life

A/N: After looking two reviews from my _An Unwanted Child _story, I decided to try my hand at another attempt to either bring sanity or insanity to the world of _Evangelion_. Manga universe. It might be too late to mend the familiar ties, but every day, every minute, every breath you take, is a chance to save people you feel are worth saving, even if others don't agree with you. Let's do this!

Time stood still for Shinji within Unit-01 as he faced the new Angel that slowly advanced toward Tokyo-3. He was caught off guard at the sight and features of the target. It was Unit-03, the new Eva that was built in the USA, but the way it walked, with its upper body hunched over, it reminded him of the previous humanoid Angels that approached the city. His fellow pilots, Rei and Asuka, had been dispatched easily by the Eva/Angel, leaving him alone to face it. The cold-hearted Gendo Ikari wanted him to destroy the target, but he knew that he couldn't, not while there was a chance that Toji Suzahara, one of the only friends he made ever since he arrived, was alive and still inside the Entry Plug, probably terrified of what was going on outside.

The Eva/Angel then crouched down and did a front flip toward the purple Eva, disarming it of its rifle and sending it smashing into the side of a hill!

Shinji felt his neck tighten; the Angel was trying to strangle him, choke the life out of him. His father questioned his unwillingness to fight back, only to receive the answer that he wouldn't fight as long as someone was inside the Eva, even if it was an Angel; the boy wouldn't kill his friend. Suddenly, Shinji felt relief in his neck, and he found himself not in the Entry Plug, but in a misty forest, lit up by a series of lanterns, like a setting for some sort of festival or event. He was dressed in a kimono that was designed with colors identical to his plugsuit, holding a mask like the armored face of Unit-01, standing on a path of dirt.

"…Tell me, is the life of your friend worth what you're going through, Shinji Ikari?" A woman's voice asked him, and he saw a young woman, sitting on a rock, dressed like a miko or shrine maiden, with long, flowing, ebony hair and amber-colored eyes that seemed to be ablaze. "Is wanting to save his life worth more to you than your own life?"

He didn't know who this woman was, but her question mystified him, and so he nodded in the positive that his friend's life was worth more than his own.

"Who are you?" He soon asked her.

"I am Sosei, the Maiden of Rebirth," she answered him. "You do believe in the concept of rebirth, do you not, boy?"

"I'm sorry. I don't believe."

"No need to apologize. Not many believe in life after death, which comes after life. Rebirth, reincarnation, resurrection, all words that mean to do something again, regardless of whether it's the same thing or an entirely new thing. New life is simply a renewal, a reprieve from the pain that comes with death. The immortal soul of a person, shackled in flesh once again, cursed to live until the day they are meant to die…only to enjoy a season of peace in the afterlife…until it is time for them to live again in the realm of mortality."

Although Shinji had never heard such a concept as rebirth, and everything surrounding the concept, he somehow knew that what this priestess was saying was very deep, very ancient.

"You want to save your friend's life, regardless of the danger you're in, so that he can go be with his sister, who is waiting for his return…and another girl, who is unaware that he's in danger of losing his life," she expressed, detailing further to Shinji of what was going on outside the current situation he was in with Toji. "So I ask you, Shinji Ikari, what are you willing to give up, to sacrifice, to save your friend from death?"

"I…I…" He was at a crossroads with her question.

"Would you be willing to sacrifice an arm or a leg? Would you sacrifice your sight? Would you give up the very life you have right now to save his?" She enforced her question to him.

"Yes," he answered her. "Yes, I would give up my life."

Sosei had a sad look on her face; this was the answer she was looking for from him. He was willing to give up his life to save another's, and he had lived a sad life. She levitated off the rock and stood in front of him.

"You will die," she told him, warning him of what was to come if he chose to save his friend's life. "You will be questioned of whatever beliefs you once held. Souls of the past shall question your spiritual development, trying to find the slightest hint of decay. Demons will search out for any shred of religion you might've practiced, hoping to find any fashionable substitute for old or new beliefs. The Devil shall judge your interest in art, seeking a poisonous malady. And God will examine your heart, finding if love is still there…and not replaced by illusions. You may be blessed with a renewal of new life at the end, or you shall suffer the pains that will decay your soul until a time comes for you to be reborn once more, remembering the pain as a long, forgotten dream. I will try to sway you away from that fate, to save yourself instead, just once more…with the same question I've already asked you: Is wanting to save the life your friend worth the loss of your own life, Shinji Ikari? And, please, be honest when you answer."

Shinji, being warned of the danger, what he would undertake if he gave up his life for Toji's, and knew the answer to the question…as it had been the same answer he had given since he lost consciousness from being strangled.

"He has people he loves waiting for him," he told the priestess. "He's the one whose life should be spared an untimely death, the one that should be spared a cruel fate. Let him live. Take my life…and end this."

Sosei frowned in sadness, but gave an approving nod. She took his right hand in her left hand and led him down the path, deeper into the forest.

"May the deities grant you a better life after death," she told him.

"Thank you," he praised her.

"No, Shinji Ikari," she countered, "it's you who should be thanked. You're a selfless soul."

-x-

The Dummy Plug-driven Unit-01 had ripped Unit-03 to pieces and was about to crush the Entry Plug to pulp, but then it suddenly stopped, mere seconds from crushing the plug. Its insides, from the waist up toward the neck, surged, flared and sparked, and fell to its knees.

"What just happened?!" Gendo demanded, having authorized the activation of the Dummy Plug to ensure Unit-01's survival; he could care less about his son.

"We don't know!" One of the technicians expressed. "Unit-01's biomechanical systems have all fused!"

"And the Dummy Plug?"

"It's fried."

"What of the target?"

"The target's…been silenced," announced Maya Ibuki, who mustered the will to resume looking at the monitors once Unit-01 was made to cease its slaughtering of the other Eva.

"What of the pilot?" Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki asked.

"We…we've lost all contact with the Eva," another of the technicians revealed. "We can't tell if he's alive or dead."

-x-

"…Hey! We found another survivor over here!" Somebody shouted, as the injured Misato awoke to the sight of the night, illuminated by emergency lights; the last thing she could remember was the sight of Unit-03 turning into an Angel, and then the explosion, ending with a darkness overtaking her sight.

"Urgh, what happened?" She groaned, her voice raspy and dry.

"You're finally awake, Katsuragi," came Kaji's voice, as he showed up, holding a bottle of water.

"Kaji? What happened?" She asked him, once she drank the bottle he had.

"Unit-03 got possessed…and had to be taken out as an Angel," he confessed.

Misato then remembered the last time she saw Shinji, who was displeased knowing that one of his friends had been picked to pilot an Eva, and could only imagine how he was feeling right now.

"…Then Unit-01, somehow, ceased all activity and just stopped, seconds before crushing Unit-03's Entry Plug," Kaji had continued, explaining what had happened to the Evas; Unit-02 had been knocked out almost instantly, Unit-00 had lost an arm and was left for dead, and how Unit-01, under the control of the Dummy Plug, ripped Unit-03 to pieces before stopping.

"The Dummy Plug? What of Shinji?"

"They lost contact with the plug," he told her.

-x-

_"__…__Will you see me next time, Toji-Nisan?"_ The question that was given to Toji by his little sister echoed in his aching skull.

"…Ow…" He groaned, waking up to a white ceiling, and raised his left hand to his forehead.

"You're finally awake, Suzuhara," he heard a girl's voice, and he turned to his right, seeing his classmate, Hikari Horaki, sitting in front of him.

"Class Rep," he responded, wondering why she was here.

Hikari gave the expression of being flustered and turned away, saying, "I'm here on school duties, nothing more."

"Oh. Okay." There was a quiet moment between the two, until he spoke up again. "I…I had an unusual dream. I saw Shinji…and he said for me to live a good life, to go home."

Hikari's looked like it had become burdened with a terrible weight; she knew something Toji didn't.

"Where is he?" Toji asked her. "Where is Shinji?"

"He…"

-x-

"…How could this have happened?" Misato questioned Ritsuko, seeing the doctors unable to revive Shinji on the operating table.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," she told her. "The Dummy Plug wasn't supposed to cause damage to the Eva or the pilot."

"Oh, yeah? Well, tell that to Shinji."

On the operating table, the boy in question seemed unharmed, but below his flesh, beneath his skull, his heart had ceased beating…and his brain had ceased sending out electrical impulses throughout his nervous system. He'd been extracted from the plug of Unit-01, looking unconscious, but after a retrieval team member took a closer look at him, they could see that he wasn't unconscious, but near dead, and the oddest thing was that he seemed unharmed. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him; it as though his body just gave up and shut down. It was suspected that this was the result of the Eva shorting out due to the unstable Dummy Plug, as it was still being tested for bugs. The blame could've fell upon Ritsuko Akagi for building the accursed thing, but it was more Gendo Ikari's fault entirely for authorizing the activation of it, knowing that it was unstable.

In addition to the Third Child, Unit-01 was heavily damaged, with an estimation of three months to repair it. The core was only slightly damaged, but still in adequate condition, but the rest of the body was degraded, like a fire incinerated it from the inside out.

"He was angry knowing that his friend was picked to pilot the Eva," Misato told Ritsuko, stressing at how awful it was to use children as soldiers in a war they were never told of, with the exclusion of Asuka and Rei.

-x-

"…They actually built that damned autopilot for the Evas?!" Asuka asked Rei, after being informed of Shinji's death.

"Yes," Rei answered her, her face unchanged by the fact that one of them was now dead, but deep down was she affected by the news of his death. _But he died to save Suzuhara. He gave up his life to save another's, even when ordered to defeat the Angel._

"What the Hell were they thinking?! Using an untested autopilot system against an Angel?!" Asuka continued to rant.

"It was only because Ikari-Kun wouldn't fight back, because Suzuhara was stuck inside the Eva. He wouldn't fight back as long as he was trapped in the plug." Rei explained, keeping it simple.

"And the autopilot killed him! It killed him, fried the Eva, and all we got to show for it is the stooge!"

"So, you're saying his death's my fault?" They turned to the left side of the hallway they were in, seeing Toji, accompanied by Hikari. "Is that what you're saying? He got killed trying to save me? Saved my life, forfeited his own…and his old man doesn't even bat an eyelash about what happened.

Rei was unfamiliar with the concept of batting one's eyelashes over someone else's death, though she knew Gendo wasn't the type of person to demonstrate emotion at all times, unlike Shinji had. But the idea of batting one's eyelashes seemed…like the right thing to do at a time like this. Shinji had been someone they knew, and while not deeply associated with him, they were probably the only ones, excluding Misato, that were…crushed by what happened.

"…Why the heck did you get picked to pilot, anyway?" Asuka asked Toji, now curious to why someone like him, who wasn't special in any way, whatsoever, got selected to pilot an Eva.

"Some blond-haired woman came to see me at school and asked me to pilot," Toji repeated the same explanation he had given Shinji, right down to the part where he was informed that his sister would get better medical care if he joined. "Unlike you, Soryu, I wasn't doing this for some thrill or hero-worshiping or whatever it is that you do it for. I just wanted to help my sister, who probably won't ever walk again without the aid of prosthetics."

Asuka, while not giving a damn about the stooge, whatsoever, had never known that he had a sister in need of medical care. All she had really known (and overlooked to the point of ignoring) was that people were unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire of this war if they weren't in their shelters whenever an Angel attacked the city. If the guy had accepted the position of a pilot only to help his sister get well quicker, then she had to consider that he wasn't as dumb as she viewed him. But then, she had to reconsider Shinji's reason for wanting to save his life at the cost of his own.

-x-

In the cold and empty operating room where what remained of the Third Child was left on the operating table, a lone figure stood in front of the boy, dressed in the attire of a miko, undetected by the security sensors, cameras and other systems afforded to NERV. It was Sosei, with a sad expression on her face. She hated that there was no other way out between Shinji and Toji; fate was always cruel to the undeserving, and one of them had to die. But still, she was proud of his selflessness at wanting to save an innocent life placed in danger. He was now being judged by the Almighty One himself, seeing if there was true love in his heart, not replaced by delusions of it being an illusion. She could only pray that he would be granted peace on the other side until the time came for him to be reborn.

"Those affected by your death demonstrate it in various way," she spoke to his body, "never knowing how much you mattered to them until you were gone. Hopefully, you will meet them again in your next life. One that is filled with hope and happiness, as opposed to one of lies, trickery and manipulation."

She raised her left hand to his face…and closed his glazed eyes, since the doctors didn't close them earlier when they tried and failed to revive him. Once she did that, she bowed her head and took a moment of silence to mourn his end. Shinji had never known happiness since the day his mother left him to play the ghost in the machine, followed by his father showing his true self and abandoning his son shortly, afterwards, then sending for him years later just to exploit him as a pawn. Now, he was free of the lies, the tricks, the hollow words of acceptance and love of an insidious plot made years before he was even thought of.

"May your next life be one of harmonious joy," she told him, and then faded away from sight.

-x-

Atop a lonely hill, carpeted with a few flowers, served as the resting place of Shinji Ikari; Asuka had insisted that he be buried someplace that bespoke life instead of the cemetery where his mother had been buried, which bespoke of death so immense that not even weeds grew there. But it was Toji who suggested the writing for his tombstone: _Shinji Ikari, from Two-Thousand-One-Two-Thousand-Fifteen, a selfless hero and a true friend_. The funeral had been small, since only a handful of people had shown up to pay their respects to the recently deceased: Misato, Pen-Pen, Kaji, Asuka, Rei, Toji, his sister, Kensuke, Hikari, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki (whom people initially assumed was there on Gendo's behalf), Ritsuko (who couldn't help but feel regret for her part in his death), the Bridge Bunnies, and Sosei, the woman they couldn't see. It was a quiet mourning, each attendant saying how they knew Shinji…and what they regretted being unable to tell him.

"…I didn't know Shinji for more than a few months since he transferred to the school," went Toji, giving his piece of what he regretted being unable to say to Shinji, "but I didn't think highly of him after finding out that he was the pilot of the Eva that got my sister hurt. I actually punched him after I met him, never knowing how horrible it was for him to do something that caused him great pain, that he had no choice, that his father was a real jerk."

He didn't know how much everyone agreed with him on that belief.

"…When I found out that he had died in the battle, I couldn't believe that he had been unwilling to fight the Angel that possessed the Eva, even when he was ordered to by his father. He chose to give up his own life instead of taking mine, not wanting my blood on his hands. I'm forever grateful to him, not just because he saved my life, but because I met him, got to know him as well as I could. He saved my sister more than once. He's…the greatest friend I ever had. Thank you."

His sister, walking with the aid of a bionic right leg brace, set a single white rose in front of Shinji's grave, above the other flowers left by everyone else.

"Thank you for saving my brother's life, Mr. Shinji," she said to the grave.

-x-

The Angels didn't come after his death, anymore. There was one that showed up almost a month after he was buried, but when it devastated less than half of the city and the majority of NERV HQ, dispatching the Evas Unit-00 and Unit-02, it just stopped for a while and then left. Unit-01, once it was fully repaired, was tested with the Dummy Plug for the second time, but it rejected the system, and when Rei was used, it rejected her, as well. With the lack of activity from the Angels, NERV was placed on indefinite standby, with the majority of their funding going into repairing the city.

Kensuke, once he graduated out of school, went to work in the filming industry, meeting up with a bookworm named Mayumi Yamagishi.

Rei, developing an interest in séances, went into a profession for the supernatural and nobody saw much of her again, though some people had to wonder if the reason for her interest was because she might have tried to contact Shinji's spirit.

Asuka, after the war was declared over, stayed with Misato at her loft, since she had no desire, whatsoever, to return back to Germany; her mother was dead and her stepparents weren't her ideal people to be with. And what's more was that she had given up on Kaji after his rejection of her.

Misato had found employment as a private investigator, something as far removed from the violence of her previous profession as possible; some would view this as a possible penance for her failure of Shinji, since he was one of the few that followed her orders when going into a battle he might not come back from, regardless of whether the Evas were safe or not.

Toji and Hikari hit it off a few months after they mourned the passing of Shinji, getting married a few years after they had graduated from college; he had gotten a scholarship based on his athletics and managed to do better on his grades while she had a degree in biomedical studies.

Kozo Fuyutsuki had passed away due to a heart attack three years after NERV was put on indefinite standby, possibly as a result of his age.

Ritsuko went back to college to obtain another degree in medical science, after spending a few months seeing a therapist about her nightmares of Shinji dying, possibly her subconscious informing her of some measure of guilt she had over his death, which she tried to get over. It wasn't easy for her, since she had ignored many of the moral considerations involved in science…and the ethics involved in stating what gave scientists the arrogance to play God, amongst other things.

Gendo Ikari became a recluse, having lost everything and everyone; the displacement of his most necessary resources drove him into being a bitter person. He wouldn't hone up to it, but the death of his son was never part of scenario, at least not until after all the Angels had been beaten, and while he still needed him to pilot Unit-01. The boy's death changed everything in his plans, and no scientific methods to try and bring him back to life would undo any of it. He could do so with Rei to a degree, but with others, this was an impossibility because such an understanding of the very soul itself was beyond the understanding of science. And, according to a rumor, he was visited by a woman, dressed like a shrine maiden, who told him that his son was now far away from his cruel reach, his twisted influence and his uncaring heart.

The men that made up the SEELE/Committee were later found out of their cruel agenda and their hand in profiting off the suffering of the world after Second Impact and were incarcerated on charges of genocide and attempted genocide, amongst other charges under the RICO Act.

Even though those greatly affected by the death of Shinji Ikari had aged, moved on to the best of their abilities, or have even moved away from Tokyo-3, every year on the anniversary of his death, his sacrifice to save a friend, they get together just to reminisce about him and how he mattered to them.

-x-

Epilogue

"…Coming, I'm coming!" A fifty-year-old Misato Katsuragi groaned, as she heard the doorbell ring outside her apartment.

She opened the door and stood in front of a young woman that looked about thirty, with long, ebony hair and green eyes, dressed in a blue dress.

"Are you…Misato Katsuragi?" She asked her.

"Yes," Misato answered.

"I'm Rika Yami, and I think my son has claimed to have known you from somewhere before."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, he mentioned your name once, but he couldn't explain where or how he heard of you. But then, he directed me to this building."

"Okay. Well, where is he?"

"Right here!" They both turned to further down the hall and at a little boy, holding a large, stuffed tiger like it was his companion, and Misato's eyes went wide at the features on the boy: From her current perspective, the boy looked exactly like Shinji, only younger and more…active, more happy than he had ever been in his life.

"Oh…my…God," Misato gasped; she hadn't believed in such a concept as reincarnation before, but this boy in front of her had made her reevaluate her sense of belief.

"This is my son, Baki," Rika revealed, "though his friends prefer calling him Shinji for some reason, and he doesn't complain about it."

"Wark-wark!" Pen-Pen ran out of the apartment and stopped in front of the boy and his stuffed tiger. "Wark-wark!"

Baki, or Shinji, as he was called by his friends, patted Pen-Pen on his head and uttered how great it was to see him again. This made Misato confused, since Pen-Pen never took to new people quickly.

"Um, Baki? I mean, Shinji… What was the last thing you remember about me?" She questioned him.

He explored his memories for a short while and answered, "You had left one day to perform work on one of those giant machine things and you couldn't answer why Toji was picked to ride in it."

She remembered that day very well. There wasn't a moment in time where she ever lost track of every second that occurred on that day. She never even knew that her inability to answer that question would cost somebody their life because their…former relative was so cold that he would actually try to kill somebody that could still be saved. If it were her in charge, she would've permitted Shinji to do whatever it took him to save a friend.

"Uh…how are things with you?" She asked him, wanting to know he was doing in the here and now.

"I'm doing great!" Shinji cheered, adding that his seventh birthday was just yesterday and his stuffed tiger was his first gift, explaining why he had it with him.

Misato felt happy for him, seeing that, even after losing his previous life in a traumatic event, he got a better life in return, years later. He saved a life, lost his own, but had a new life free of Eva.

Fin

A/N: This was an interesting piece I wrote here. I'll admit that the majority of my work in the Evangelion universe revolves around the Unit-03/Bardiel incident, something that hardly any other writers appear to do anything about in positive ways. While this story demonstrates some measure of cruelty to those that don't deserve it, it also demonstrates another possibility: What might've happened had Toji lived and Shinji died in place of him? So, read and review, tell me what you think of it.


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